Gorgeous, Sensual Sexuality in Artistic Film and Photography

Tag Archives: sexuality

Without lauding what this particular lawyer dude from Delaware is up to (because he seems kind of skeevy) I do think that he has a point… Why do we care so much about people seeing our nude and/or sexual selves? This is an idea which is near and dear to my heart because, well, I get freaked out about it a lot. You see, my work is what I’d call porn-adjacent. I’m in the thick (PUN!) of it in terms of my day to day operations, but I am not the subject nor am I sexually available in any meaningful way because of my job. Sometimes I dabble in blogging, reviews or interviews which include a glimpse into my sexual life (these days, it’s absolutely nothing to write home about anyways) but it’s always done in an arm’s length kind of way. I’m lucky that I don’t feel any pressure to go any further than I feel comfortable. Camille and Mike are very respectful of me and would never ask anything beyond my desires…. But I am undeniably curious at times.

I mean, I have a very outgoing personality, I’m a decidedly sexual person and, even though as a bigger girl I’m not everyone’s favourite flavour, I know the niches that would work for me. Every year, along with representing our sites, making valuable contacts and soaking in the inspirational environment, the Feminist Porn Awards always brings at least a few tempting offers to shoot with some of my idols. So far, I’ve shrugged them all off with sheepish statements about just being a behind the scenes type of gal, but it does make me question why I’m so reticent to share my sexuality and my body online.

This reluctance doesn’t just mean that I wouldn’t likely shoot professional porn, but also that I’m almost overly judicious about any way that my body could appear online. The only sexy videos and photos I’ve shot with former partners were mutually deleted in what is almost a half-ceremonial/half-legal exchange — last time over delicious Vietnamese takeout. On the increasingly rare occasion I’ve had any reason to get sexy over webcam with an object of my affection, I’m actually very cautious to only have my face OR my body in the shot, and to have a sufficiently ambiguous backdrop. With the propagation of ex-girlfriend/revenge porn sites devoted to ogling non-consensual sexts and screengrabs, you can never be too careful even though I trust those with whom I’m e-intimate.

I certainly have absolutely zero sexual shame, I’m confident about my body, I’m quite up-front about sex with the people in my life… There shouldn’t be any reason for such concern, but there are still external societal pressures to keep the theoretical sex separate from the physical embodiment (or digital reproduction there-of) in order to feel safe from the more intense ramifications of sex-negative culture. I’m happy and secure with my job and feel an increasing comfort in my path in the sex-positive sector, so I’m not particularly concerned about my image in that respect and I’m relatively confident that I could explain a foray into porn to absolutely any friend or family member… I guess it’s largely that, though I don’t view sex itself as private, I struggle with the vulnerability required to share it. Once it’s out there, it’s out there, and you can’t entirely control the way people interpret it, even as a person with a background in porn PR.

Maybe I’m just too uptight. After all, I’m also not the type to get a tattoo for fear of regrets over that which cannot be undone, but I so deeply admire those who can let go and do what they want. I’m a little too in my head to divorce my desires from the potential impact of doing something which is stigmatized in many ways, though less overtly so. Perhaps if it became more normalized, it’d be easier. It’d definitely be healthier for everyone societally to share and bare our sexual and physical selves to reduce shame, promote our differences and find kinship in our baser natural states.

I’m not saying we should make like that University of Iowa TA and accidentally attach a sexy video instead of the solutions to her math homework, as I think that there’s a time and a place for everything and that a delineation between overt public/professional persona and the sexual self is still important, but I think that we should be able to shrug off such situations as a moment of exposed humanity and move on. That takes some doing, which only comes through normalizing such sexual expression. It’s kind of a catch 22. I know that more people need to be willing to be open to cause the shift, and that starts with the individual… In this case, with me. Will I do it? I guess we’ll see.

I love learning a few sexy new facts, and I like them even better when a few of them are entirely focused on what goes on in the mind. After all, as much as the physical is very, very fun, a tremendous amount of it is informed by what goes on in your brain. So, two aspects really intrigued me about Jezebel’s recent little roundup on sexual findings.

The first thing that really pinged to me is exactly how many men fake orgasms… Apparently it’s up to 67% when it comes to divorced men. Obviously there’s a lot of talk about women faking and the reasons around that, but there’s also a lot of expectation put on men to be able to have orgasms… It’s linked to virility, but it’s also seen as manly to want lots of sex and to be able to come on demand, but not too soon or too slowly. Sometimes it’s just not going to happen. So, I have to ask… Have any of you (divorced or otherwise!) ever faked an orgasm? What was your reasoning, or what keeps you from doing it?

The other thing that sounded incredibly cool here is that women (though maybe men too) are able to get aroused, sometimes to the brink of orgasm, just by imagining being stimulated. The brain is a sex organ, but it may actually be able to arouse us right through various stages of desire and fulfillment. Has anything like this ever happened to you? I know that I can imagine my nipples being played with and I can experience some pretty intense sensations… And I certainly salivate before I’m ever around a penis if I’m thinking about a really visceral blowjob experience… It’s pretty phenomenal. How about you?

What this really means is that we can and should be thinking more… Fantasizing, letting our minds wander and experiencing that as part of our sexual expression both alone and with a partner. It can make for more arousal, more orgasms… Even though the latter is definitely not the be all and end all. It’s just about enjoying yourself, whatever form that takes.

One of the things I did a while back was ask around about what people might like to see on my blog. Outside of more blowjobs (of course!) one request was to hear more from Sophie. She was quite happy to oblige, so here’s what she had to say in response to an xoJane article about the concept of sex-negative feminism:

Thanks, Camille! I always feel like a field reporter when you have me blog here. This article has been on my mind for a while because I just can’t quite wrap my head around her reasoning, so I finally decided to break down and post about it in some way. I identify as a sex-positive feminist, but it’s certainly not without critical thought, and that appears to be the crux of the problem with the argument she presents: she thinks that people come to sex-positive feminism without questioning it and making sure it’s the right fit for themselves, or that feminism doesn’t truly enter our view of sexuality at all. It’s not that feminism doesn’t play a role in our understanding of our sexuality, but that our feminism allows for enjoyment of sex in spite of a deeper thought process around it.

She says that she calls herself a sex-negative feminist “because it’s a startling term” which I don’t disagree with, but it doesn’t really accurately reflect how she feels. I would assume it was just click bait based on the article, but she does seem to strongly prefer the label. The author paints herself this way, but ultimately espouses much of what is expected of a sex-positive feminist. For example:

Being sex-negative doesn’t mean that I fancy myself the chief inspector of the sex police, or that I am personally judging what you do in bed, or that I’m conservative, or that I’m engaging in repressive moralizing. It doesn’t mean that I hate sex workers, or that I want to ban sex work or porn (and, in general, I tend to leave those conversations to women who do sex work while I shut up and listen to what they have to say). It doesn’t mean that I hate sex or that I’m embarrassed by it.

That’s pretty sex-positive, or at least sex-neutral, to me. You can be critical of sex-positive feminism, and I think that’s incredibly important as someone who regularly looks at my sexual life choices, my position in the pornographic community and my own sexual politics, but the main criticism of sex-positivity (including her main criticism) is unbelievably disempowering; we are sexually enthusiastic and performative not because we as women want to be, but because the patriarchy has forced us to be this way. We can’t possibly truly consent or be unharmed by our “kinks” because this is all a construct meant to keep women down. Our pleasure isn’t real, particularly if it relates to male pleasure or anything that could seem like female subjugation… Particularly porn. To this I say: and?

This may be sound rhetoric. In some ways, I have no doubt that it’s at least somewhat true, but what are we supposed to do about it? Should all women retreat from sex and go generations without it until we can finally create our own sexual dialogue, free from patriarchy? That doesn’t sound very realistic. A much better way is to be active in sexual communities and concepts, making room for women to negotiate the complexities of being women having sex in our culture. We can be kinky, make porn and enjoy our sexuality on a superficial level without ignorance of the framework in which we’re doing so.

Sex-positivity should never be about saying that it’s wrong to not like sex, not like porn or not like certain aspects of our sexual culture, but it is to say that we can’t ultimately shut it down because of the condition it was in when we got here… We just need to be allowed to enjoy it as we can and derive pleasure while trying to gain back some of the power that has historically been kept from us. It’s not compulsory to participate, it’s just important to respect the choices of those who do…

The reason I bring this up is chiefly because, as we’re on a porn adjacent site, we’re in a centre of sex-positivity, and a lot of people seem to assume that goes without critical thought and analysis. We truly try to focus on being intelligent about the way we present our porn and to be the most encouraging and friendly to our audience. As a marketer, I hope we’re doing a good job at this.

There have certainly been a number of lovely articles coming from men who get it over on Good Men Project, and this one is absolutely no exception. This is a letter from a father to his daughter, understanding that she is going to have sex and wishing her well with it. It’s a reaction to the idea that a dad should always be holding a loaded shotgun to threaten any boy who wants to date his perfect little princess…

Women, even younger women, should be able to explore at an age-appropriate level without feeling like their “purity” is being held back by someone other than herself. This is true of young men too, of course (and anyone in between) but the stereotype is a man keeping his helpless daughter away from horny teenage boys. Regardless, we really can’t control what other people do with their lives and their sexualities. All we can do is encourage them to respect themselves and make safe(r) choices, educate them to the best of our abilities and provide a willing ear and a hug if/when things go wrong. Really, this is not just about being a parent… It’s for anyone who has anyone in their life… You just have to live and let live.

Good for the author (Ferret Steinmetz) for being an encouraging, optimistic and kind father. I hope that any of you with people in your life (whether it’s your kid, a family member, a friend, even a partner) who is venturing out into the unknown will take this great example and try to find ways to be supportive instead of limiting. Have you ever had this kind of experience in your life, where you are worried for or feeling protective of someone? How did it play out? And, more specifically to the article, what do you think about this kind of approach to sexuality and parenting?

Sometimes I just want the world to stop jumping to all sorts of conclusions, particularly about sex and our bodies. This article from Jezebel is the latest example, and it practically makes me shudder, and certainly makes my heart go out to all sorts of people who have these misguided assumptions about themselves or their prospective partners… This is particularly about one woman’s decision to circumcise her child because she wanted him to get blowjobs when he grows up, assuming that someone with a foreskin would be less likely to get them because of prejudices against the uncircumcised in North America… Seriously?

To anyone who thinks this could be true: it isn’t. Any person who you would want to suck your penis would not think this. Scrub good, of course, but that’s universal. Everyone should make sure to smell/taste good, but having a foreskin requires what? A few more seconds of washing? It’s not that tough. They’re retractible, they don’t get in the way, if anything they give a little more to play with… There’s no shame in being circumcised or uncircumcised.

Everyone has their reasons for choosing whether or not to circumcise their child, but this consideration should absolutely not be an issue. All it does is further the notion that it’ll be harder to get blowjobs with a foreskin, and we shouldn’t be floating that idea around or giving it any kind of credibility. It’s giving great penises a bad name, and no one needs any more sexual or body-related shame in their life!

What do you think? Is there any validity to this kind of thinking? Has anything like this ever crossed your mind? Or did this article make you hopping mad or frustrated?

So much of why my sites focus on the give and take, the playfulness and the joy of mutual pleasure from giving/receiving pleasure and on being neutral as opposed to having either of us always in control… I don’t like the idea that men are always in charge, or that a woman in charge is always a kinky thing. Humans are so much more complex than that, and it leads to bad things when men have all the responsibility, and certainly when women are intimidated by men sexually because of it.

I think that so many of the people here in this community are gentle men, or at least men who are capable of being gentle. There are so many parts of our society who default to thinking men are always brutish, especially in sex. This collective alone shows that this is not the only case. But how do we spread that to everyone else? Well, this article has 5 really great steps to do exactly that. They want men to be allies to women in their struggles, they want men to communicate actively and listen, to be open instead of always trying to play games or seduce us by the book, to be reasonable and understanding when rejection happens and to find ways to feel beautiful in a world that doesn’t hold male beauty in high regard.

A lot of these things have been touched on here, and I think that’s wonderful. I’m wondering, how many of you feel impacted by this notion of male sexuality as demonized? How has this experience impacted the way you have sex, the way you see yourself as sexual and the way you interact with people in other ways?